Page 23 of Little Buried Secrets

I received no response, and I didn’t expect I would. Even if he’d walked the trail faster than I had, he wouldn’t have made it this far around already. I picked up the pace, heading in the direction of the sound I’d heard. Several feet in front of me, I spotted a man wearing sunglasses, a black hoodie, and jeans. He had the hood pulled over his head and a headlamp strapped around it. He was holding something in his hand, but I couldn’t make it out.

“Hey!” I shouted.

The man froze for a second.

Without turning around, he abandoned the trail and took off into the woods.

I was wet, cold, and tired.

Too tired to chase after him.

But I did.

It wasn’t long before I realized he was a lot faster than me. With each passing moment, he seemed to get farther and farther away, until he made a foolish mistake. He turned to see how far away I was, and in doing so, he tripped over a log, faceplanting onto the ground.

My luck, it seemed, was changing.

I took a deep breath in and sped toward him. I was still several feet away when he managed to get back on his feet. He attempted to flee a second time, but the obvious injury he’d sustained to his left leg made it difficult. Instead of running from me, he limped, giving me the opportunity to grab him from behind, tackling him to the ground.

I ripped the sunglasses from his face, and I realized the man I assumed I’d been chasing was a teenager—a teenager I’d met before.

And that wasn’t all.

When I forced him to the ground, the item he’d been holding in his hand fell to the ground, and I gasped, my eyes locked on a woman’s pink-and-white tennis shoe.

CHAPTER 10

“Sebastian?” I asked. “What are you doing here?”

He looked up at me and grunted, “I could ask you the same thing.”

“Answer the question.”

“Screw you, lady.”

Giovanni, who’d just caught up to us, bent down, his face inches from Sebastian’s as he said, “You will speak to Georgiana with respect. If she asks you a question, answer it. Do anything to the contrary and your leg won’t be the only injury you sustain this morning.”

Sebastian looked at Giovanni and then at me. For a moment, it appeared like he might make another snide remark, but he stopped himself. Instead, he cleared his throat and said, “I’ve been looking for Margot every night since I found out she was missing.”

“Your parents told me you haven’t left the house in days,” I said.

“They have no idea. I’ve been slipping out after they go to bed.”

“Why not join the search party like everyone else?”

He sat up and tried to wipe the dirt off his jeans, which didn’t work.

“I don’t feel like seeing or talking to anyone from school right now,” he said. “My cell phone’s been blowing up. I just want to be left alone.”

“You say you want to be alone, but you texted Bronte yesterday, didn’t you?” I asked.

He blinked at me, shocked I knew he’d reached out to her. “I … uhh, yeah. I figured she’s dealing with the same thing right now. If she agreed to meet up, I was going to tell her what I’ve been doing the last few nights and see if she wanted to search with me.”

“Did Bronte text you back?”

“No.”

He reached for the shoe he’d dropped, and I stood in front of it, blocking him. “Leave it where it is for now.”

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